Cricket draws 93% of sports viewers in India reports BARC

Agencies
June 4, 2019

London, Jun 4: Cricket is the jewel in the crown of rising sports viewership in the country, with 93 per cent of all sports viewers in 2018 tuning to cricket content, and women form a chunk of the audience, according to a BARC India report.

As many as 766 million viewers sampled sports content in 2018. It grew from 43 billion impressions in 2016 to 51 billion impressions, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9 per cent, according to the report that comes amidst the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup.

The impressions is defined as the number of individuals in thousands of a target audience who viewed an 'event', averaged across minutes.

Highlighting key insights, Romil Ramgarhia, Chief Operating Officer, Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, told IANS: "Although other sports are making their presence felt on television, cricket continues to be the most watched sport in India. The broad fan base of cricket is evident from the fact that women constitute 48 per cent of viewers.

"Also, growth in cricket viewership is increasingly coming from regional language broadcasts. It's visible from non-English consumption rising from 77 per cent in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 to 81 per cent in IPL 2019, and now it's being telecast in 7 languages. The wide range of formats and tournaments, increasing viewer interest in women's cricket, international T20 leagues and domestic competitions are driving cricket viewership to new highs," Ramgarhia said.

While other sports like kabaddi, wrestling and football are gaining popularity among Indians, cricket draws in the maximum viewers.

With 342 million women formed 48 per cent of cricket viewers in 2018. Youth (15-30 years) continues to dominate cricket consumership with 35 per cent of live cricket viewership coming from this segment in 2019.

In the live cricket segment, the T20 World Cup in 2016 and the Champions Trophy in 2017 contributed 21 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively, to the total cricket viewership.

The absence of any major International Cricket Council (ICC) event resulted in 28 per cent drop in the international cricket viewing for 2018, while IPL in 2018 grew 19 per cent over the previous year.

IPL is a mainstay in the regular Indian home and dominates sports viewership in the weeks it's on air. The homegrown league, in its 11th edition, dominated the annual cricket viewership with 40 per cent share. Interestingly, 50 per cent IPL viewers are below 30 years of age.

As far as the impact on the advertising industry is concerned, e-commerce has emerged as the dominant sector with share of ads going up from 14 per cent in 2016 to 42 per cent in 2018, whereas smartphones and telecom ads have decreased from 24 per cent in 2016 to 11 per cent in 2018, the report said.

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Agencies
August 3,2020

New Delhi, Aug 2: The finals of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 will be played on November 20, the sources within the BCCI confirmed on Sunday.

The IPL's governing council met earlier today, and it has also been decided that the evening matches will start at 7:30 pm, half an hour earlier than usual.

Jay Shah, the secretary of BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) and Arun Dhumal, treasurer of BCCI did not attend the IPL's governing council meeting.

"The tournament will run for 51 days, usually the IPL should go on for 49 days as per the constitution, however in the meeting it has been decided that we will go to Supreme Court for conducting the IPL in 51 days," sources within the BCCI said.

"As the tournament is running for 51 days, we will get the chance to play fewer doubleheaders, there would be just 10 double headers, evening matches will start at 7:30 and the afternoon matches will start at 3:30. 

The matches will be played across three venues at Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah as travelling here by road is easier and bio-secure environment can be maintained," he added.

The IPL's governing council also confirmed that Women's IPL will also go on and four teams would be participating in it.

"When it comes to women's IPL, there would be four teams and the matches would be played at the time of playoffs for men's IPL," the source said.

The source within the BCCI also said that the governing council would be meeting again to discuss the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all the franchises that need to be followed in the IPL.

The governing council meeting discussed the quarantine measures along with the standard operating procedures (SOP), bio bubble training facilities, stay and travel of the players.

Issues related to the broadcaster, shifting, and scheduling of the tournament, and DXB app to be downloaded for players and other officials were also discussed as well.

A few days earlier, the IPL Governing Council chairman Brijesh Patel had confirmed that the 13th edition of the mega event will commence on September 19 in the UAE.

This year's IPL was slated to commence from March 29 but the tournament was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Emirates Cricket Board (ECB) had also confirmed receiving the official Letter of Intent from the BCCI to host the 2020 edition of the IPL.

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Agencies
February 7,2020

New Delhi, Feb 7: It was on February 7, 1999, that Anil Kumble became just the second bowler in the history of cricket to take all ten wickets in an innings of a Test match.

He achieved the feat against Pakistan at Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, now known as Arun Jaitley cricket stadium in Delhi during the second Test of the two-match series.

India had set Pakistan a target of 420 runs in the match and the visitors got off to a steady start as openers Shahid Afridi and Saeed Anwar put on 101 runs for the first wicket.

It was then Kumble who came into the attack and wreaked havoc on the Pakistani batting line-up.

The spinner, also known as 'Jumbo' first dismissed Afridi (41) in the 25th over. After the right-handed batter's dismissal, India kept on taking wickets through Kumble and Pakistan was reduced to 128/6 in no time.

Kumble then kept on taking wickets at regular intervals and he got his tenth scalp in the 61st over after dismissing Wasim Akram.

This effort enabled India to register a win by 212 runs, and Kumble became the second bowler after England's Jim Laker to take all ten wickets in a single Test inning.

Kumble finished with the bowling figures of 10-74 from 26.3 overs.

Kumble announced his retirement from international cricket in 2008 and finished with 619 wickets in the longest format of the game.

He has the third-highest number of wickets in Tests, only behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan (800) and Australia's Shane Warne (708).

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News Network
July 12,2020

New Delhi, Jul 12: Former India batsman Sachin Tendulkar has urged the International Cricket Council (ICC) to do away with 'umpire's call' whenever a team opts for a review regarding a leg-before wicket (LBW) decision.

The Master Blaster has also said that a batsman should be given out if the ball is hitting the stumps.

Whether more than 50 per cent of the ball is hitting the stumps or not should not be matter, he further stated.

"What per cent of the ball hits the stumps doesn't matter, if DRS shows us that the ball is hitting the stumps, it should be given out, regardless of the on-field call," Tendulkar tweeted.

With this tweet, the former India batsman also shared a video, in which he has a discussion with Brian Lara regarding the working of DRS.
"One thing I don't agree with, with the ICC, is the DRS they have been using for quite some time. It is the LBW decision where more than 50 per cent of the ball must be hitting the stumps for the on-field decision to be overturned," Tendulkar said in the video.

"The only reason they (the batsman or the bowler) have gone upstairs is that they are unhappy with the on-field decision, so when the decision goes to the third umpire, let the technology take over, just like in tennis, it's either in or out, there's nothing in between," he added.

This call for doing away with umpire's call has been recommended by many former players.
Whenever a verdict pops up as 'umpire's call, the decision of the on-field umpire is not changed, but the teams do not lose their review as well.

ICC recently introduced some changes to the game of cricket, and they gave all teams liberty of extra review as non-neutral umpires will be employed in Test matches due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As a result, all teams will now have three reviews in every innings of a Test match. 

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